The present invention relates to a shopping cart with dedicated multi-compartments wherein to provide a variety of compartments which permit excellent visibility to articles disposed in the compartments and to separate perishable or damageable articles from heavy articles or odor contaminating articles, and permitting ease of placement of heavy articles in other compartments.
The shopping cart of the present invention is an improvement of the type of shopping cart as described in our co-pending application, Ser. No. 09/759,367, filed on Jan. 16, 2001, and entitled xe2x80x9cShopping Cart with Wheeled Support Base Preventing Tip Overs.xe2x80x9d The shopping cart as described therein has only two twin baskets, with the top basket having a baby seat compartment, and accordingly the top basket may be said to have two separate compartments. That patent application is more concerned with preventing tip-over whereby the baskets and their load are disposed substantially between the outer periphery of the casters. One disadvantage of such shopping carts is that the baskets have large load capacities and many of the products placed in the baskets are hidden by other products placed thereover and thereabout. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether a certain product has been purchased and hidden from view in one of the baskets without having to move the products around in these baskets. This is time-consuming, provides traffic jam in the aisles of merchandising stores, and also can cause damage to certain fragile articles such as eggs, and still further can cause contamination of some foodstuff by odors given from certain other products such as powdered soap boxes, which sometimes may have a film of soap on the outer surface thereof which is caused during bulk transportation of such products.
A main disadvantage is that, because the baskets are so large, foodstuff or other type articles are buried and can be damaged, and, seeing that they are not visible to the user person, this may only be discovered at the checkout counter. This often also results in the same article being placed in the basket twice, and this again causes delays at the checkout counters, or else the person purchases two of the same article.
It is a feature of the present invention to provide a shopping cart with dedicated multi-compartments which substantially overcomes the above-mentioned disadvantages of the prior art.
According to the above feature, from a broad aspect, the present invention provides a shopping cart with dedicated multi-compartments. The shopping cart comprises a tubular frame supported on casters. A handle is disposed rearwardly in an upper section of the frame for displacing the shopping cart on a surface. The frame has a base portion having at least spaced-apart side frame members extending in a common plane with respect to a floor surface. The frame also has a rear portion upwardly extending from the spaced-apart side frame members. The rear portion is defined by a rear tubular vertical frame member extending upwards from a rear section of an associated one of the spaced-apart side frame members. The handle is connected between a top free end of the rear tubular vertical frame members. A structural stepped frame portion is disposed forwardly of each rear tubular vertical frame member and defined by a pair of L-shaped tubular members, each secured between a respective one of the spaced-apart side frame members and the pair of rear tubular vertical frame members. The L-shaped tubular members have a top horizontal leg section and a depending vertical leg section. A free end of the horizontal leg section is secured to an associated one of the pair of rear tubular vertical frame members and spaced from the top free end thereof. The vertical leg section is secured at a lower end to one of the side frame members. A shallow top basket compartment is secured across the horizontal leg sections and projects forwardly thereof, and is adapted to receive light fragile merchandise therein. The top basket compartment has a rear smaller compartment adapted to receive small fragile articles separated from the shallow top basket. A large shallow intermediate basket compartment is secured to the vertical leg sections and is spaced under the shallow top basket compartment and has a major section thereof projecting forwardly of the shallow top basket compartment, and is adapted to receive nonfragile articles therein. A support platform is formed across the spaced-apart frame members of the base portion of the frame and is accessible from under said large intermediate compartment, and is adapted to receive large heavy articles. A rear lower compartment is accessible rearwardly of the shopping cart and has a trough-like support shelf adapted to receive and retain articles not desirable to be close to foodstuff, to separate them therefrom.